EARLIER: October was an odd month for the New York Rangers, but
Halloween and the start of November have represented a change on Broadway.

The Blueshirts have slowly but surely begun to rediscover
their blue-collar identity and are showing signs of gelling into the legitimate
playoff team many expected them to be prior to the season.

New York has been led by its trademark strong goaltending,
but the Blueshirts have also benefitted tremendously from the strong play of
their young defense:

“We don’t talk about it enough,” Coach John Tortorella said
after Thursday’s game. “Ryan McDonagh,
you can see his confidence growing and growing in all facets, offensively he’s
trying to push. Michael Sauer is in the
way. Dan Girardi we know about as far as
what he can do. Michael Del Zotto is a
very important guy for us right now and what’s happened with our defense and I
think he’s progressed nicely.”

The defense has been solid all season, but the Rangers are
also slowly starting to receive some supplemental scoring for their big guns
and the result is that the team now boasts a two-game home winning streak.

New York has a back-to-back this weekend with two winnable
games against Montreal and Winnipeg, both of which struggled out of the gate
but have picked up their play of late.

The Canadiens always seem to give the Rangers trouble and
won three of the four games between these teams a season ago.

This year Montreal appeared to be a team in decline, but the
Canadiens picked up their fourth-straight win last night over the Ottawa
Senators.

The Canadiens are buoyed by star goalie Carey Price, but
Montreal sorely misses star defenseman Andrei Markov, who’s out with a knee
injury yet again. Surprisingly, the
Canadiens have boasted a fairly balanced attack this season and have nine
players with two goals or more.

Montreal has allowed just five goals during its current
winning streak, with Price in net each time including Friday night. That means that there’s a decent chance
career backup Peter Budaj will be in net on Saturday.

New York has more team speed than in recent years and thus
should be better equipped to handle Montreal’s small but swift attack, but it
all comes down to the question of whether New York can play its game.